Donation Page

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Join Dedicated People Who Care about Social Justice and Positive Change

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Donations support everything you care about at the Stowe Center for Literary Activism—especially the Stowe Center’s ability to inspire social justice and literary activism in the legacy of Harriet Beecher Stowe and all who advocate hope and freedom then and now.

By donating today, you help the Stowe Center offer ongoing programing that facilitates civil discourse on difficult and important topics such as racial justice, gender inequities, and strategic resistance.

Your donation continues the generous legacy of Katharine Seymour Day, Harriet’s grandniece, who rescued both Harriet Beecher Stowe’s and Mark Twain’s homes and helped to preserve them for future generations. Day’s generous endowment continues to help sustain the Stowe Center’s ability to preserve and interpret Stowe’s legacy. Day’s philanthropy continues today.

We could not do the important work we do without your support.

Thanks to the generosity of donors like you the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center is able to offer impact filled programing that ranges from scholarly and community lectures and discussions to school programing that introduces children to ideas of civic engagement.

Every single gift matters! If you care about change for good donate today!

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Harriet’s Backyard: From Private to Public

Your donation today can help the Stowe Center for Literary Activism preserve and enhance the lawn and gardens we refer to as Harriet’s Backyard. After consulting with community members in a series of focus groups, the Stowe Center embarked on a plan to make our unique urban greenspace more accessible with sensory and native-plant gardens, a meandering path, and meditation and contemplation seating areas. Please consider contributing to our efforts to create a common space for our neighbors, tourists, and local visitors by contributing today.

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Annual Fund

Support civic engagement at the Stowe Center. Your generosity helps us create programing that engages people of all ages with the tools necessary to participate in our democracy with a firm grounding in the historical context of social justice and literary activism.

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Planned Giving

Creating a bequest or leaving a charitable trust to the Stowe Center for Literary Activism provides an enduring legacy of support for social justice.

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Tribute Donations

Consider a gift to the Stowe Center in memory or in honor of a loved one. Tributes may be designated in support of specific projects such as collections, Harriet’s Backyard, Stowe on the Go, or ongoing Stowe research. Tributes are fully tax deductible.

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Donation Requests

The Stowe Center for Literary Activism is pleased to support the community through in-kind donations to non-profit organizations and schools.

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All programs at the Stowe Center for Literary Activism are supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities; State of Connecticut Office of the Arts, Department of Economic and Community Development; Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office, Historic Restoration Fund; Elizabeth Carse Foundation; Norman and Nancy B. Beecher; J. Walton Bissell Foundation; CT Humanities; Ensworth Charitable Foundation; Greater Hartford Arts Council and the Travelers Arts Impact Grant Program, with major support from The Travelers Foundation; Hartford Foundation for Public Giving and the Love Your Block program; The Hartford; George A. & Grace L. Long Foundation; Maximilian E. and Marion O. Hoffman Foundation; McDonald Family Foundation; William and Alice Mortensen Foundation; National Trust for Historic Preservation; Neighborhood Assistance Tax Act Program, Connecticut Natural Gas; Charles Nelson Robinson Fund; Travelers; and generous sponsors and supporters like you.

School Group Interest Form

School Group Interest Form 2024

Thank you so much for your interest in a group tour at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center! Please help us schedule your visit by answering the questions below.

School name:

Please suggest three dates and times when your group would like to visit. (Note: the Stowe Center is closed on Sunday and Tuesday.)

Contact Teacher Name:

Contact Teacher Email:(Required)

Contact Teacher Phone Number:(Required)

Number of students expected to attend:(Required)

Please enter a number from 8 to 40.

Please identify the grade level(s) of attending students:(Required)

Likely number of chaperones (including other teachers):

The Stowe Center requires one adult per every 10 students.

Are there special student, teacher, or chaperone accommodations that can help us serve you best?

Do you plan to have lunch on site?

Yes, please.

No, thank you.

Are you interested in scheduling a joint visit with our neighbor, The Mark Twain House and Museum?

Yes, please

No, thank you.

If yes, have you already contacted The Mark Twain House?

Yes

Isabella Beecher Hooker

Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker (1822-1907)
An ardent member of the woman’s suffrage movement, Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker joined in the cause along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Isabella was the first child of Lyman Beecher and his second wife, Harriet Porter Beecher.

Isabella began her education at Catharine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary and lived with her sister Mary Perkins. In 1841 she married John Hooker, a descendant of Thomas Hooker, the founder of Hartford. John Hooker was a lawyer and an abolitionist.

In the early 1860s Isabella got involved in the woman’s suffrage movement. Isabella joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony as a member of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in 1869. She was a founding member of the Connecticut Woman’s Suffrage Association. Isabella’s ideas of equality were influenced by John Stuart Mills’ On Liberty and the Subjection of Women.

In 1871, Isabella organized the annual convention of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in Washington D.C. and presented her argument before the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate. Her husband, John Hooker, believed in his wife and supported her activities. He helped Isabella draft a bill to the Connecticut Legislature giving married women the same property rights as their husbands. The bill passed in 1877. Isabella annually submitted a bill granting women the right to vote, but it did not pass in her lifetime.